Maria Takayama
Character Overview 'Maria Takayama '(高山 マリア Takayama Maria) is a supporting character from the Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Light Novel series. Maria is the supervising teacher and moderator of the Neighbors' Club and is a ten-year old nun. While being exceptionally gifted in academics, she is also very rude and immature, and often uses a variety of expletives when annoyed. She develops a sibling-like relationship with Kodaka, who regularly makes her packed lunches, and is affectionate with him, much to Kobato's annoyance. The reason why Maria cannot make friends is that she is an immature child prodigy whose wisdom stems not as much from natural talent as from an advance education. Appearance Maria has blue eyes and long lavender-silver flowing hair. Maria is usually shown wearing her nun outfit, which consists of a dark-blue one piece dress with a white collar design of two long triangles and dark blue cornette with a heart decoration. Maria also wears a necklace with a key. During her trip to the Theme Park, Maria wore a white one piece with a cross. Maria also owns a white one piece swimsuit with her name sewn on it. Personality Maria is childish and displays this tendency numerous times, even when she claims that she's an adult. Because Maria was a child prodigy in the past, her arrogance made her unable to socialize with her peers. She quickly becomes a teacher after knowing that she is smart enough to do this. This also makes Maria very rude and would often scold the people around her (at least, before Yozora came). Abilities Intelligence True to her job, Maria is shown to be intelligent enough to at least be a teacher in High school Math and Japanese Language. She does Yozora's homeworks and never complained that it was difficult and even comments on Kobato's Math homework being "too easy" something even Kodaka was impressed. Maria also seems to have a good vocabulary since she is able to describe "Annexation" (The term of the incorporation of territory into another geo-political entity) with great detail. However, Maria is extremely naive being able to be outsmarted by many characters in the series and is extremely trustful of others when getting on her good side. Even Kobato once managed to use Yozora's words to trick and manipulate her. However, Maria also doesn't seem to do much research on her Bible studies shown when she didn't even bother to check The Bible and realize there's no such commandment as "If someone slaps you on the right cheek, give them your room also. Oh, and also sign the paperwork to officiate their club" (obviously made up by Yozora to coerce her into lending her favorite nap time quarters to the Neighbors Club) until it was too late. In terms of sexual education, Maria is also rather naive in this topic considering that she has high-school level education (although in another sense, Maria did skip the grades and hence, it is possible that she was not taught in these matters). Other Abilities Maria is quite gluttonous, being able to eat great amounts of food without any sign of being full at times. At the festival, Maria is shown to be able to eat copious amount of street foods such as candied apples, Takoyaki, Fried Squid and plenty of others. At the theme park, despite eating bunch of hotdogs and having a crepe, Maria is still able to gorge down a plate of curry rice. In fact, one of the ways to get on Maria's good side is food. Trivia *Maria's surname, Takayama ( 高山 ) literally means "Tall Mountain". *Maria's surname, Takayama and her catholic background may also be an allusion to the famous Christian-Daimiyo during the civil war era, Dom Justo Takayama. *The meaning of Maria's given name in Hebrew means "sea of bitterness" or "sea of sorrow." Some alternated meaning may mean "rebellion" or "wished-for-child". True to this, Maria's past is indeed rather bitter due to her attitude. Also, it could describe Maria's rebellious attitude. *Maria's favorite food is potato chips and she also seem to have a liking for Nikujaga (Japanese Meat and Potato Stew). *Maria and Kobato share some similarities. They both are younger sisters, looked like children (literally for Maria's case) and both actually believed that Kobato is a vampire. *The clubroom was originally used by Maria for her afternoon naps. *Although in the anime, it was depicted that Maria was rude and constantly insults Yozora when asked to use the clubroom before Yozora had enough of it and slapped Maria. In the manga and Light Novel, this event never really happened and hence, placed Maria in a better light than perceived in the anime. *The small fights between Kobato and Maria may be an allusion to how Yozora and Sena often fight. Quotes Category:Deuteragonist Category:Maria Category:Neighbor's Club Members